


Unexpected Connection

by igrockspock



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:26:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27071188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/pseuds/igrockspock
Summary: If you’d asked Rose what would happen after Paige died, making friends with General Organa wouldn’t have been on the list.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Rose Tico
Comments: 32
Kudos: 77
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Unexpected Connection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nununununu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/gifts).



If you’d asked Rose what would happen after Paige died, making friends with General Organa wouldn’t have been on the list. 

Six months after her death, the loss is like a missing tooth, a strange gap that Rose can’t quite get used to -- or doesn’t _want_ to get used to, if she’s being honest with herself. Grief hurts, but the thought of _not_ grieving hurts even worse. Then she’d really have lost Paige forever.

Most nights, when her shift is done, she sits on the narrow rock wall that surrounds the base and tells Paige about her day, no matter how ridiculous the ritual makes her feel.

“So the Order increased my bounty by 100,000 credits,” she starts. “It happened a week after I got promoted to commander. The wanted holos call me a terrorist leader now, which is weird. Anyway, the general said they couldn’t have known if they didn’t have a spy, so she told a bunch of people different secrets and waited for one to leak. It turns out that Larry in catering really had it out for me.”

She wishes she could hear Paige laugh at the absurdity of it all -- that Rose Tico, soft-spoken mechanic, is a commander of the Resistance now, and random guys from the bowels of the Resistance want her dead. Or maybe Paige would just be happy. _The Resistance has bowels again! You guys are doing such a good job with recruitment!_

Small bowels, Rose thinks back. Larry _was_ the catering department, so they’re back on ration packs until somebody can rustle up another chef.

A dim blue glow creeps across the forest floor, and Rose catches her breath. She doesn’t believe in ghosts, not really, but Rey had said once that Master Luke appeared to her --

A decidedly unghostly rustling, followed by a stream of profanity, jolts Rose out of her wishful thinking. General Organa steps out of the trees, sheathing her lightsaber and swiping a hand across her face.

“Are you alright?” Rose asks, searching her pockets for a tissue that isn’t covered with grease. She comes up empty.

“Walked right into a cobweb,” the general says, “That’s going to be a bitch to get out of my hair.”

Rose glances at the lightsaber dangling from the general’s belt. “Is, um, everything okay?” she asks, wondering if a better commander would’ve brought her blaster outside, just in case.

The general nods. “Just a perimeter sweep.” She tilts her head toward Rose. “What are you doing outside at this hour?”

“Talking to my sister,” she blurts. A pink flush immediately blooms across her cheeks. She really should learn to lie, if only to save herself from embarrassment.

The general doesn’t laugh, just makes a little humming noise and nods. “I’ve done the same myself.” She hoists herself up on the wall next to Rose. “How are you doing? And don’t say you’re fine. I know bantha shit when I hear it.”

“I _am_ fine,” Rose says hastily, even though it’s not the whole truth. “At least, I’m fine during the day. Then at night, when I used to talk to her…” She shrugs. “I used to tell her so many things. Not secrets. Just dumb everyday things that nobody else would want to hear. I miss having a place for those.”

“That was the hardest part of losing Luke,” the general says, looking down at her hands. “The first time, I mean. When he disappeared.” For a moment, she looks very old and very sad, and then her face brightens. “How about I make you a deal? Whenever you think of something you wish you could say to your sister, you tell me instead.”

Rose blinks. “Really?” 

It’s hard to imagine the leader of the Resistance is interested in all of her silly thoughts, but the general just nods and says, “Try me.”

“Porgs are really cute.”

“Yes, and Chewie says they’re delicious,” the general says. She winces. “Oh dear, I’ve missed the mark, haven’t I?”

“Um. I’m sure, as a general, you have to be practical about food sources?” Rose thinks she would starve to death rather than eat a porg, but maybe she’ll have to shift her thinking if she’s going to be a commander.

Leia sighs. “It’s possible I’ve gone feral in my old age. Try me again tomorrow and I promise I’ll do better.”

***

Rose didn’t expect to see General Organa the next night. It had been a busy day on base, and anyway, surely she hadn’t meant to talk to Rose _every_ night. But the second Rose’s butt settles onto the perimeter wall, the General’s striding across the lawn toward her.

“Hit me,” she says, spreading her arms wide. “I promise that if you tell me you like a living creature, I won’t even consider eating it.” She frowns. “That’s a lie. I _will_ consider eating it, but only in dire circumstances, and I won’t _tell_ you about it unless those circumstances arise.”

 _Shit._ Rose really should have planned something to say. Something witty and amusing, maybe. A good joke. She takes a deep breath and blurts, “I know you made me a commander, but I don’t _feel_ like a commander. I feel like a terrified mechanic from a backwater mining colony who’s exactly two seconds away from some terrible decision that will doom the Resistance.”

The general frowns. “Does empirical data support that conclusion?”

“What?” This is the problem with trying to think of General Organa like a new sister -- Rose never has any idea what she’s talking about. That never happened with Paige.

“Sorry,” the general says. “The biochemistry PhD never completely wore off.”

“You’re a princess and a general and you have a doctorate?” Rose blurts out. “In _biochemistry_?”

The general waves a hand like it doesn’t matter. “Trust me, that kind of thing is a lot easier to accomplish if your parents were the type to have you privately tutored in a palace. And the hard sciences were the only thing that wasn’t censored by the Empire. My parents were sure I’d wind up in a prison camp if I tried something like political science, so off to the biochem lab I went.”

Rose fumbles for something better to say than _um_. Her brain’s hung up on trying to figure out exactly how young the general was when she’d gotten a PhD, because she couldn’t have been older than twenty-five when the Empire had fallen. So on top of everything else, she’s some kind of genius, and she wants to talk to Rose like they’re _friends_?

“ _I_ am not the point of this conversation. _You_ are,” the general says, freeing Rose from the necessity for formulating a response. “So I ask again: does anything in your track record suggest that you’re carrying the Resistance to the brink of disaster?”

“No.” Rose grits her teeth. “But that’s not the problem. I _know_ my record is good. You’re desperate for recruits, but you’re not an idiot. You wouldn’t have promoted me if I couldn’t do the job. I just can’t make myself _believe_ it.”

The general settles on the wall next to Rose. “Do you know, getting that PhD was the scariest thing I’ve ever done?”

“You faced down Vader!” Rose exclaims. She’s heard the stories. Even if only half of them are true, the general is the bravest person Rose has ever known. 

The General shakes her head. “I’d never even been in a real school before, and here I was, this young princess packed in a cohort of geniuses who all thought my parents had bribed my way in. I had no idea if I belonged there, and I was sure that if I said the wrong thing just once, everyone would know I was a fraud.”

Rose looks down at her hands, idly picking at the crescent of grease beneath her thumbnail. “Sounds familiar.”

“Stay afraid, Rose, but do it anyway.” The general pats her knee. “It’s the action that matters. If you keep doing it, the confidence will come.”

Rose shifts on the wall, away from a rock that’s jabbing her butt cheek. “Paige would’ve just told me not to be afraid,” she says.

The general raises an eyebrow. “Would that have worked?”

Rose shook her head, feeling a little guilty. “No.”

“Hiding from your emotions almost never works -- not that I didn’t spend half my life trying.” The General gives a rueful sigh. “It’s scary work we do, Rose. Holding people’s lives in our hands. Neither one of us should stop being afraid.”

Rose nodded and slid off the wall, feeling lighter than she had in a long time.

“Thank you, General,” she says, hoping she sounds more like a commander and less like a scared little girl.

The general smiles. “You’re welcome. And now I need to ask a favor in return.”

“Anything,” Rose says, maybe a touch too fast.

“Call me Leia.” There’s something in the general’s face now, a kind of naked longing that Rose hadn’t expected to see. She wonders suddenly if any of the general’s friends had survived the evacuation and the battle on Crait. Frankly, calling General Organa by her first name is one of the scariest things Rose has ever had to do -- not just because of how much she respects her, but because that’s like calling herself the general’s equal, and she doesn’t know if she can live up to that.

But then, her fears don’t really matter right now. She knows what it’s like to lose half of yourself, and she can’t leave the general to face that on her own. 

“Thank you, _Leia_ ,” she says, lifting up her chin and stepping straight up to her fear. It’s not as hard as she thought it might be. “Same time tomorrow?”

Before Leia had smiled. Now she beams.

“It’s a date.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written on Carrie Fisher's birthday. What Leia says to Rose about confidence and overcoming fear is a Carrie Fisher quote.


End file.
